


Cold, Cold Winter

by Reylinne



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Action, Angst, Billy Hargrove Deserves Better, Billy Hargrove gonna get better, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Bisexual Steve Harrington is gonna get his boyfriend back, Boys In Love, Enemies to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Harringrove, Hurt/Comfort, I'm pretty angry at how this season turned out if you can't tell, In which we ignore canon completely because!!! fuck canon!!!, Longing, Love/Hate, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Post ST 3, Post Season 3, Post-Canon Fix-It, Robin and Steve being fucking cute friendship goals, Sad and Beautiful, Winter Soldier AU, i hate this show, sort of ????
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 08:24:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19808461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reylinne/pseuds/Reylinne
Summary: Steve sees it every time he closes his goddamn eyes: Sees the body collapse to the floor, sees Max run to him. He can hear Billy's hollow apology before his life so abruptly ended, can hear the silence throughout the mall because the monster finally died.And so did the giant fleshy beast that killed him.





	Cold, Cold Winter

Every flicker of the lights, every time lightning strikes, every rumble in the distance.

Every tear shed in happiness, grief, or laughter. Every day stepping foot into the mall, going to work. Every rumble of an engine, every jolting movement, every single shower.

The shadow monster. The mind flayer. Attack.

Death and mourning, a sister without a brother, a daughter without a father. Where it all began, where it all happened, where it all ended. Memories of high school, of fistfights, of otherworldly things.

The therapist says that only time will tell, but quite frankly, that’s the last thing that Steve wants to hear.

_ Time will tell. _

Time will tell what exactly? That this world is fucked up? That this stupid bullshit Steve’d gotten dragged into over three years ago is going to have an everlasting effect on his mental state? On the young kids?

Time will tell that Eleven has to grow up without a father? Without the father she’d just  _ found? _ That Max has to live in a household without her brother to take all of the hits for her? That Max has to  _ live alone with an abuser?  _ That Will has to feel inevitable and unfortunate guilt? Feeling like it’s all his fault because the monster got him first before it got Billy?

Billy.

Steve wishes he’d known.

Wishes he’d known what Billy had gone through. Wishes he’d known that the boy was suffering at home, living in anguish and isolation from any sort of support or affection. Wishes Billy would have just said anything to  _ anyone _ when he’d moved to Hawkins instead of shoving Steve around in some weird sort of coping mechanism. Wishes he’d paid attention to how weird Billy had been acting when he’d seen him at the pool after dropping the kids off, when he’d seen Billy loitering at the mall: Perhaps his body wouldn't have been the perfect breeding ground for evil that it ended up being.

And as Steve exits Starcourt linked arm in arm with Robin to help Dustin get ready for his first ever high school winter formal, he’s empty. He fondly remembers the snowball, dropping the younger boy off at the middle school and proudly watching him go inside. He recalls seeing Billy dropping off Max that night, making eye contact with him from a few cars over. No words exchanged.

The passage of time is crazy, how these few years have simultaneously felt both as if the world stood still and also like years have flown by. Every day that adds itself to history, Dustin - a makeshift little brother to Steve - grows up before his eyes. He doesn’t have siblings, has no family, really. His mother and father are always away on business and he never sees them now that he and Robin share an apartment together on the outskirts of town.

Robin.

Steve is so unbelievably thankful for Robin. Dealing with all of his child friends, for his lack of desire to do much at all except for watch reruns of television shows. And most importantly for being a lending hand to him this past year from the moment he’d first gotten his job at Scoops Ahoy to consoling Eleven and Max on their losses that same summer to helping Mike, Lucas, and Dustin deal with Will and Eleven moving away from Hawkins.

Dustin had broken up with his long-distance girlfriend after he and his mother had both come to the consensus that it was time for him to not go to summer camp anymore. There was no way for them to see each other; He’d been hurt and lost until Steve had convinced him that now really is his time to shine.

“It’s your sophomore year, dipshit, you’re going to be sixteen in like a month. You’re going to be able to drive yourself and the date you’re going to score all over the place soon enough. It’ll be easy,” Steve points to Dustin’s head. “It’s the hair.”

Dustin shoots him daggers, dropping his arms to his sides in annoyance. “Yeah, that’s what you said last time, and I ended up dancing with Nancy Wheeler.”

“Well,” Steve shrugs, glancing to Robin for support. “That’s better than-”

“It’s your leftovers, Steve. I don’t want that.”

Robin’s eyebrows perk up. “I thought she left Steve, not the other way around. That would make Steve Nancy’s leftovers, would it not?”

“Yeah, you’re right. So in that way, that means I scored and you didn’t, right?” Dustin points at Steve, who is clearly not having any of this conversation. “In your face!”

Steve folds his arms across his chest. “Look, that was two years ago. Can we please move on? It’s really not funny anymore.”

Robin plants her hand firmly on his shoulder. “It’ll only stop being funny when you stop getting so hot and bothered about it.”

-

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” Steve leans across the counter, tipping his sailor hat back on his head.

After they'd restored the mall, it was like a brand new job in a brand new place all over again. Steve had still kept up employment at the video store, but he was pretty thrilled to be back dishing out desserts to kids and adults with a sweet tooth.

“I’m always a pleasure, who are you kidding?” Dustin skids fifty cents across the surface into Steve’s grasp. “Two scoops. One strawberry, one pistachio.” 

“Gross,” Steve grumbles as he deposits the quarters into the register and opens the freezer. He hands the cone to Dustin, who immediately chomps down. Steve’s eyes widen at the sight. “...Did you just... _ bite _ your ice cream?”

Dustin shrugs off Steve’s repulsion and immediately changes the subject. “Eleven is visiting, you know.”

“I didn’t, but that’s pretty cool. Tell her I said hi,” Steve wipes off the scooper and tosses it in the sink for sanitation. The two idle in silence for awhile, Steve watching Dustin munch on his too-soft-for teeth treat. He’s anticipating Dustin to say something else. He looks like he’s got a lot on his mind and they really weren’t the small-talk type of friends. “So…”

“I just feel like Mike is going to ignore me all weekend. That’s all. And so will Lucas. And Max,”

_ There it is. _

“Well, you can, uh, come over if you’d like. We can watch Ghostbusters if you want. I’ve got it on tape now,” Steve offers, checking his wrist watch. Robin will be here shortly. He’s got eight minutes left on the clock and is determined to do absolutely nothing before the night shift comes in because whenever he closes up shop, the morning crew fucks him over. Even precious Robin.

“No, I’ll be okay. I just… I love Eleven like a sister but I don’t like how they all push me aside. I feel like they kind of ignore me a lot anyhow, but it’s worse when she’s here. And I wish she’d bring Will one of these times, too. I miss him. I’ve barely seen him.” The boy sniffles, rubbing his nose on his sleeve and Steve is mortified.

He’s complete trash at trying to make anybody feel better about anything and he doesn’t really know how to reply to that. He can barely remember the days of friends fighting over each other, of getting excluded. He never had to deal with that sort of thing after probably fifth or sixth grade, and he really pities the fact that Dustin is still going through it into high school. But people change, friends change, and sometimes life changes. And life in Hawkins has changed a whole hell of a lot in the past few years.

“It’s only because you’re here all the time, and she’s not,”

“Bullshit,” Dustin replies flatly, kicking the toe of his shoe up against the baseboards.

“Um, not really,” Steve picks his nails, obsessively checks the time. Three minutes.

“How do you know when people don’t want to be friends with you anymore? Like how did you know that the freckled boy and his bitch girlfriend didn’t want you?”

_ Didn’t want you. _

Ouch.

Steve hesitates, eyeing the kid. He’s not even returning his attention, as if this conversation were the most uninteresting thing on the face of the Earth. “Well, they uh...liked Billy better than me.”

Dustin stops licking his ice cream briefly, enough to meet Steve’s eyes before shifting his gaze down to his feet. “Oh,”

Steve nods, tapping his fingers on the glass covering the ice cream freezer impulsively. He would rather meteor fire strike them down than continue this conversation.

“Well, how did you know they didn’t like you as much as they liked Billy?”

Heaving a sigh, Steve sees there really isn’t an escape from it. “I don’t really think you have to worry about that. Billy is...Billy  _ was _ ,” Steve pauses. He started to say that Billy was an asshole just like Tommy H and Carol, but he bites his tongue. “Billy was angry. He was...going through some shit. You remember. He wasn’t very nice at the time.”

“Never really was, if you ask me,” Steve hears the crack of Dustin biting into the cone without looking at him and if he didn’t know any better, he might have thought the sound was actually his heart audibly breaking in half.

_ Never really was _ .

“You just...didn’t get a chance to talk to him much,”

Dustin shrugs. “He saved us. So I guess he was okay,”

Steve winces at the word.  _ Okay.  _ Billy was  _ okay. _

He’s fully finished with this conversation, exhausted from so many feelings assaulting him with less than five minutes worth of words and heads to the back of the shop to punch his time out. He motions for Dustin to come with him out the back exit.

Robin is waiting for him in the hallway along with Mike and Lucas.

“Look who I found,” Robin smirks, awkwardly reaching her hand up to pat Mike on the head. “All your friends are here.”

Rolling his eyes, Steve twirls his keys around on his index finger and pushes out the back door. Eleven and Max are waiting for them outside in the parking lot, leaning against Robin’s car. Eleven breaks into a jog when she sees Steve, enveloping him into a hug. “Good to see you,” She chirps, moving on to Dustin next. Steve purses his lips and nods because he barely even knows her. Mostly knows  _ of _ her. He’s never really been around her except for moments when tragedy has been reigning terror across the entire town. The last time he’d seen her at all was the day the monster came to the mall, when Hopper and Billy had died.

Over a year ago.

Eleven looks well. Her hair is long and braided, and Steve can’t help but wonder about Will, Jonathan, Joyce. Wonder what they all look like. Wonders if this year and a half has been kind to them. Wonders how Will is handling it all: The move, his friends quarrels, a new sister. Steve knows that he himself can feel the fear, can hear the sounds, can see the nonexistent monsters in the shadows - he cannot even fathom what it’s like for Will. After all, the evil that killed Billy once lived inside Will as well.

_ “It’s your leftovers.” _

Steve cringes, physically shaking his head to ward off the nasty thoughts drowning his mind.

In truth, Steve does feel pity for Dustin, because even before the Byers’ had moved away, he knows that Dustin had been left out. The second that Dustin had gotten home from summer camp, he’d been neglected by his friends. He’d had Dustin and Will over to his house back when he’d just started at Scoops and still lived with his parents last summer, and they’d both vented to him about feeling excluded and ignored.

And maybe it’s been hard for them all to cope. Pain manifests itself in different ways, and that’s why Steve has clung so hard to Robin. He only wishes that Dustin and the rest of his friends could have morphed into one heart to heal instead of four that keep pulling farther apart.

The sun is starting to set at the ripe hour of 5 o’clock, as per usual for winter in Indiana. Robin keeps motioning as if she needs to go, and she does, but Steve appreciates her presence because he really doesn’t want to just stand here like a statue as these kids chat for another hour or two about tenth grade and how they’ve missed each other because they haven’t seen one another since the summertime and it’s been so long and yadda yadda yadda.

Steve’s stomach turns at the sound of an engine in the distance. It’s a reflex at this point, any time anything loud sounds near him, he tenses up. As everyone is enjoying themselves, he lets his gaze wander to a motorcycle circling around the parking lot. It’s dark and Steve can’t see well. The headlamp shuts off, and Steve lightly taps Dustin on the arm.

“Hey,” he says quietly, his pace quickening. “Dustin.”

Dustin ignores him, arguing with Mike about some school project.

“Hey,” Steve repeats, louder this time. And the motorcycle is still approaching in the dark, faster now. His blood turns to freeze as he hears the engine rev louder, reminded sickly of that night two summers ago.

Robin is next to notice that something is off, and reaches out to grab Eleven and Lucas just as the biker leaps off his vehicle and sends it cascading towards them.

“Holy shit!” Dustin shrieks, shoving Mike and Max towards Steve. 

Foul is not accurate enough to describe the noise the motorcycle makes as it sails in their direction, sending sparks flying everywhere and leaving a trail of paint and metal shavings along the cement of the parking lot.

The instant the biker steps into the lamplight, it’s obvious. Full Russian soldier uniform, thick and heavy. He’s got a creepy looking gas mask on, and before Steve can even holler out a useless warning, the assailant pulls the cord on a grenade and tosses it their way.

Smoke pours out of the little ball, and Steve quickly passes his jacket to the kids to cover their mouths. Bullets explode from the cloud, speckling Robin’s car. The screams of the party are muffled by the gunfire, and the sounds of people panicking from the other side of the parking lot can be heard in the distance.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Dustin picks up a rock and tosses it at the biker, who doesn’t flinch whatsoever. He’s locked on to who Steve assumes to be Eleven, nothing even coming close at distracting his attention away from the girl.

The soldier stalks towards Robin, Eleven, and Lucas, and Steve lunges at the man. He wraps his arms around the assassin’s neck, but he easily flips Steve’s body over his head and onto the ground before lifting him up and launching him horizontally through the air.

Steve groans helplessly as he watches Eleven fling miscellaneous objects from the parking lot at the assailant who deflects each item with simplicity. He kicks Mike square in the chest, sending him flying against Steve’s car before grabbing Dustin by the hood and whipping him across the cement like he’s a crumpled piece of paper.

Steve isn’t positive how Eleven has recovered over the last year, she had lost her powers during the summer battle at the mall. He doesn’t really understand her abilities, doesn’t understand the girl herself. She’s pained and stressed as she raises her arm, lifting the man up and throwing him through the dumpster container area. Not even a minute of peace passes before he storms out faster than before, grabbing Robin and smashing her head down to the concrete. Steve pulls Lucas close, forcing his eyes closed as El flings his precious BMW at the soldier.

The man screams out as he lifts the car with ease, flipping it off of his body. Steve clutches his stomach, feeling faint and terrified. The gas mask is cracked and the man whips it to the ground, blood from the broken plastic having sliced his cheek and forehead. Steve can’t see much except for the man’s blood streaked around his face, smeared into what looks like black warpaint surrounding his eyes.

The Russian rolls his shoulders, his face twisted into pure rage as he reloads his rifle and aims. Before Eleven can use her powers again, Steve grabs her arm. “Wait!”

“What is it? Let go!” She cries, pushing him away.

“Stop it, knock his gun away!”

Eleven gives Steve a petrified and confused look but obeys, sending the man’s rifle skidding across the parking lot. His gaze follows it, pulling out a knife instead and breaking into a run. El sends a shockwave his way, knocking his new weapon and body to the ground, and he braces his elbow on his knee for only a split second before readjusting.

“Wait, wait, stop,” Steve brushes past. His entire body is Jell-O, hands shaking, lip trembling. “...Billy?”

Throwing his arm to the side, the soldier’s assault rifle soars right back into his grasp where Eleven had knocked it loose barely twenty seconds prior. The whites of his eyes are piercing, his posture stiff as he stands and his blond hair blowing loosely in the wind. He reaches up only briefly to wipe blood from his nose before resting it back in its place brandishing his weapon. “Who the hell is Billy?”

Expressionless, cold and deadset. He charges them.

Eleven reaches out her hand, holding Billy back as he fights her, each step more and more determined. “Go!” She shouts, beckoning them all to get into Robin’s bullet hole peppered sedan.

Robin climbs into the driver’s seat, hand resting against her head as all of the kids pile into the back seat. “Get in!” She calls to Eleven, who quicky shuffles into the back seat. She sprawls out on top of everyone’s lap as Robin floors it out of the parking lot.

Steve whips his head around, desperate to see the man standing there. He’s just  _ standing _ there, alone in the empty concrete sea, gun hanging limp from his grasp. He doesn’t move as the car drives further and further away until he’s out of their line of sight. “Holy shit.”

Eleven is sobbing, Dustin is rambling to himself, and Max is staring into the distance, off in a different world. When they arrive at the apartment, Robin dashes inside, slipping and nearly wiping out as she rounds the corner. Steve can hear her calling the police as child after child heads into the building.

Max hangs back, and Steve can see her floating there. “Hey,” He says, breathing for what feels like the first time in hours.

Her facade cracks at the sound of Steve’s voice addressing her, her lip trembling before her face scrunches up to let a single tear fall down her cheek. Steve pulls her in for an embrace, cupping his palm around the back of her head. 

“Was it...was it really him, Steve?” She heaves into his chest, her fingers digging into his sailor uniform like nothing else could anchor her down. “Was that…”

Steve chokes on air, attempting to clear his throat and hopefully his fucking mind.

_ Was it? _

No, it couldn’t have been.

But…

Was it?

"I don't know," Steve states honestly, because  _ how could it be possible? _

Max heaves a sob, stabbing her fingers into her eyes in anguish. "He was gone, I saw it, I felt him, I-"

Steve turns his attention away from the girl because he's approximately thirty seconds away from crying like a goddamn child. 

Couldn't have been him.

_ Had to have been him. _

We saw him die.

_ Maybe he survived. _

Russian uniform?

_ No idea. _

Steve's innermost conversation is interrupted by Robin resting her chin atop Steve's shoulder. "Are you guys gonna come in? It's pretty cold out here," She nods toward the hallway and Steve is sofuckingthankful for her cool attitude because he himself is about to break the hell down.

"Yeah," Steve shifts his focus to Max, shoving her hands in her pockets as if she were completely a-okay. "Yeah, let's go inside."

The kids get distracted by a night time movie, leaving Steve and Robin to go refill the popcorn for the fourth time. Robin smiles at Steve sheepishly, and Steve isn't sure if he should address what happened or-

"So are we going to discuss it?"

Okay.

"Uh, discuss…?"

Robin turns the burner on, shaking the pan around on the stove. "Billy."

"Who the hell is Billy?" Steve forcefully smirks despite his entire heart shattering into a billion pieces.

Robin laughs. "Okay, morbid. But really, what the hell, huh?"

"Is that all you wanted to say?" Steve doesn't really expect her to have any sort of comment about the situation. He'd still been new at Scoops when they'd embarked upon their Russian adventure, having paid absolutely zero attention to the girl in high school and if Steve paid her no mind then Billy Hargrove  _ definitely  _ paid her no mind. 

"I mourned for him too, you know," her voice is quiet, barely audible over the sounds of the popcorn and oil stirring around together. "I mean, mostly for you and your grieving, but it's not like his death didn't affect me too."

"Well, yeah, I know that. We all watched him die,"

"What I'm saying here, idiot, is that his loss impacted my life. However, I wasn't even in love with the guy. So I can only imagine-"

"I was not in love with-"

"Steve, he came into Scoops almost every single day. And whenever he would come in, you would take off your hat, fluff your hair and then watch him eat his ice cream from the back room. Don't tell me what I've seen."

Steve's jaw drops from the harsh callout. He has no words to respond, because that's exactly what he would do.

"He'd be like, 'Ahoy, pretty boy!' And you'd be like, 'Save any lives today, Billy?' And then he'd be like-"

Steve pops his hand quickly over Robin's mouth. "Will you shut up? God, you're ridiculous,"

Robin licks his palm. Steve jumps back, wiping his hand on his jeans. "Was that fully necessary?" He smirks, and the two wait comfortably in silence for a moment before Steve speaks again. "If it was him..."

Robin nods, "If."

" _ If _ it was him, he didn't even know who he was. What does that mean?"

Robin shrugs, pouring the popcorn into a massive polka-dotted bowl. "His uniform looked an awful lot like those Russians we had so much fun with last year, maybe they took him?"

" _ How _ the hell did they manage that?"

The girl mimics the exact same motion as before, and even though the action is harmless, the over exaggerated gesture feels like she's calling him stupid. Plucking a few bites from the bowl, Steve grabs three cans of Coke and piles them into his arms. Robin makes a whistling noise as she takes a couple more sodas. "He wanted Eleven, I think. Seemed to only be interested in her,"

"Makes sense, that's uh," Steve hesitates, swallowing the baseball in his throat, "That's what the Mind Flayer wanted."

"But that guy -  _ Billy _ \- was wearing full Russian garb. His blood was red. It was black when he died. So it was just him, not that fucking monster. Do you remember?"

_ Do you remember? _

Is that even a real question? Of course Steve remembers. He remembers watching on, terrified, as those disgusting tentacles or  _ whatever the hell they were  _ jutted out trying to get to Eleven. Stomach heaving as Billy grabbed one of the evil things midair to save the strange girl he’d never known that had just shown him the tiniest bit of affection. Remembers screaming out in agony as he watched the monster pierce Billy through the chest cavity, watched him drown in his own blood. He sees it every time he closes his goddamn eyes: Sees his body collapse to the floor, sees Max run to him. He can hear Billy's hollow apology before his life so abruptly ended, can hear the silence throughout the mall because the monster finally died.

And so did the giant fleshy beast that killed him.

Steve had a tremendously difficult time coping with the death of Billy Hargrove because he missed Billy but mostly because he was practically the only person in town grieving his loss. Barbara Holland, Bob Newby, and Jim Hopper all got a service, got their names in the paper.

Billy got nothing.

Billy got next to no tears shed for him, no hero's mention. He was listed under the miscellaneous casualties part of the news. Not even his name, just a number he was a part of.

It bothered Max, at least. It did. And she wasn't the same afterwards, but after talking about all of the events leading up to Billy's death, he isn't so sure that everyone did everything they could have possibly done to save Billy’s life. Isn't sure they did  _ anything _ to save Billy at all, really. 

"I remember," Steve manages, voice trembling. He runs his hands along his face, dreading another callout from Robin as the door to the apartment opens.

"Kind of you to knock," She glances over and folds her arms across her chest as both officers Powell and Callahan enter without permission. 

"No one came to the door," Powell remarks, still wearing sunglasses in the dark apartment after having arrived at night where it's  _ already dark outside _ . 

"That's a crock of bull-"

"Why are we here?"

Steve, frankly, is shocked. He hasn't really had to deal with the police since Hopper was chief, and at this point, he's grateful.

"Look, it's going to sound crazy," Robin heaves a sigh.

"Is that Hop's kid?" Callahan points to the party approaching.

"Billy is alive," Eleven deadpans. "He came for us."

"For you," Max picks her fingernails, refusing to look up from her distraction.

Steve pities her, he really does. He can't imagine the anguish she's feeling. Probably a lot of guilt. Has been the entire past year and a half. He attempts to shake the nasty thoughts from his head, albeit poorly.

_ Why didn't you help him? _

_ Why didn't you all try to save him? _

_ He was just a fucking kid too. _

Powell cracks a smile, and Steve wants nothing more in that moment than to stick his fist through the man's teeth. "Billy? Hargrove? He got toasted at the mall last-"

"Listen to her," Steve takes a rather non threatening step towards the officer. "We all saw him. He was in a Russian uniform."

The two cops exchange a brief glance before busting out laughing.

"Look, I understand that loss is difficult. But you gotta get over this crazy Russian bullshit. This is Hawkins."

Steve throws his hands up in exasperation before pinching the bridge of his nose. "He had a gun, dipshits, you need to...take care of it. Put up posters or something. He," Hesitates. "He's dangerous."

The absolute insensitivity of it all is boiling Steve's internal organs. He's about one more snarky comment away from exploding.

"Billy Hargrove in a Russian uniform running around shooting at people. Post-mortem. I'll make a note," Powell elbows Robin, who is having none of it.

Steve forcefully shoves the two officers back out the door they came from. "Get the hell out!" He shoves his fingers into his hair, grasping at the root. “I’ll find him myself if you won’t help me god dammit!” Slamming the door, he exhales and brushes off absolutely nothing but imaginary crumbs from his shirt. He's winded, completely breathless at the thought of the police being so rude and inconsiderate.

He turns around to all of the kids staring at him plus Robin giggling with a sly smirk on her face.

“What?” Steve sighs, placing a hand on his hip and itching his nose awkwardly.

_ "Hawkins residents fearful once again as bullets rain at the Starcourt Mall. The source of a terrible fire in July of 1985 has since been completely remodeled and a safe place for shoppers up until last night where witnesses say a Russian soldier rode a motorcycle into the parking lot and opened fire. Is this a declaration of war?" _

Steve rolls his eyes, turning down the volume. He rises from the couch to get more cereal when he hears the reporter again.

_ "Police describe a man approximately 5'10 with long blond hair. Uniform olive greenish in color with red and gold accents. Drives a motorcycle…" _

Every ounce of air flees from Steve’s lungs. He listens for signs of life in the apartment, wondering if Robin is up and about yet. He anxiously taps his feet, digs his fingers into his thighs, bites his lip. 

What are they going to do?

If Billy truly didn't know who he was, what the fuck are they  _ supposed to do about it? _

But they have to save him. They have to save Billy this time. Because no one even tried last time.

No one.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a pretty rough draft so I'm sorry if there's a bunch of errors. The hurt is still pretty fresh in my mind and I'm sure this has been done before plenty of times but I can't seem to get over season 3 and how much it literally destroyed my entire heart and soul. So here you go, my shitty coping mechanisms and a crossover AU of my two favourite things: Marvel's The Winter Soldier and Billy Hargrove.  
> He really deserved fucking better, by the way.


End file.
